Borough residents Thor W. Nilsen and Camille DiLullo have
been chosen to receive the 2002 Joan L. Aiken Historic
Preservation Award for Excellence for their two-and-a-half-
year project to restore the exterior of their Washington
Avenue home to its late 19th-century appearance.

The Haddonfield Preservation Society's executive committee
will present the award to the couple on May 18, at 3 p.m.,
at the King's Court gazebo on Kings Highway.

The award, given in recognition of National Historic
Preservation Week, is named for the late Joan Aiken. Aiken,
the founder of and former director of the preservation
society, initiated Haddonfield's Historic Preservation
Awards Program. A resident of the borough for nearly 50
years, she passed away in 2000.

Aiken also spearheaded the drive that resulted in a 1971
ordinance creating the 488-building historic district in
the center of town.

The awards are presented to organizations, businesses and
individuals for outstanding contributions in the following
categories of community historic preservation: restoration,
rehabilitation, maintenance, addition to a historic
building, remodeling a commercial property, exterior paint
colors, beautification to the historic district; shop-front
window displays and/or treatments, garden design,
landscaping/landscape features, lighting and signage.

Of this year's nominations, the Nilsen-DiLullo home at 100
Washington Ave. was deemed the most outstanding example of
preservation, said Carl Nittinger, the society's current
executive director.

Nilsen and DiLullo have restored the exterior of their
home to its appearance when built in 1888, basing their
project on an 1893 pen-and-ink drawing that appeared in a
Haddonfield newspaper.

When the couple purchased the property in 1999, the
exterior had been extensively altered and modified in a way
that did not respect the historic design and materials used
in 1888. The exterior had been covered with white aluminum
siding, the trim had been painted black, and original
porches had been removed, including a second-floor porch on
the front of the house.

Nilsen and DiLullo had the siding taken off to reveal
the original clapboard and decorative trim. Although a few
pieces of the original decorative detail were untouched,
moldings around the windows, doors and porches had been
removed.

Using the pen-and-ink drawing as a reference, along with
information from former owner William Smith and the
guidance of local architect Robert Thomson, moldings were
re-created to match the original. Turned porch posts,
spindles and rails were also re-created based on the 1893
drawing. Lattice work under the porches was custom-made to
re-create the small spacing between slats of the original
design.

A historically correct standing-seam metal roof was
installed on the front porch. The roof over the front bay
was replaced with a metal roof that replicates the
original.

The house was completely stripped and repainted based on
the original colors found underneath the siding.

A light yellow was selected as the base color. According
to Victorian painting guides of the time, areas of the
house that projected from the main block were to be lighter
in color, while the window trim was to be a darker color to
appear recessed. Projected areas of the house are painted
cream, while the window trim is dark green. Dark red and
gold were selected as accent colors.

"The colors really help out a great deal," Nittinger
said.

The original stained-glass transom panel over the front
door was repaired. Stained-glass windows in the stairwell
that had been lost were re-created based on the original
front-door transom panel.

The original front doors were refinished and the
original hardware was restored and repolished.

Nilsen-DiLullo home to receive Aiken awardBorough residents Thor W. Nilsen and Camille DiLullo have been chosen to receive the 2002 Joan L. Aiken Historic Preservation Award for Excellence for their two-and-a-half-year project to restore the exterior of their Washington Avenue home to its late 19th-century appearance.